


Pave The Way

by NeedMoreCyanInk



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, POV Second Person, Party, Present Tense, and some others mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-06 07:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeedMoreCyanInk/pseuds/NeedMoreCyanInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of booze, bad dancing and breakdowns; of tears and laughter and many, many nearly-kisses; of slowly but surely falling too.</p><p>Your name is Jean Kirschtein and tonight is the night your relationship with Marco Bodt changes forever.</p><p> </p><p>Modern/High School AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm changing my username to 'NeedMoreOriginalPlotIdeas'.
> 
> Sorry this took forever to post, I've been adding little bits to it every now and then and I still can't decide if it's any good but here it is anyway. Expect fairly frequent updates.
> 
> Just as a warning, there's alcohol mentioned like every other line in this. ;)
> 
> Enjoy! :)

You survey the room darkly. Great, you think. This is what you get for being late. Drunk people. Everyone is already drunk. And you can’t choke down the tasteless cider quick enough.

Some idiot barges past you, nearly knocking the crappy Solo cup from your hand (why did you bother pouring it into a cup anyway?) and sloshing the contents all over your fingers, and you think about grabbing the back of their shirt and kicking something off, but you’re too sober to get in a fight and he’s probably too slammed to be reasonable.

You sigh, wipe your sticky hands on your shirt out of lack of motivation to go find a cloth or towel, and you decide to save the host the trouble of getting their furniture covered in cheap-ass alcohol too. 

The first thing you’d noticed when you’d pulled up in driveway of the house in your crappy beat-up car (the damn thing that had caused you to be late in the first place) was the sheer size of it. Who even owned a house this big? The front door was solid oak and trimmed with pretty-looking ivy. The walls were white-washed and the even the crunchy gravel of the path leading up to a porch looked expensive and picturesque. Had, of course, there not been 3 extremely plastered teens sprawling over the swing chair and cheering ‘alright, horse-face is here!’. You’d flipped them two of your best fingers, though, and they’d smirked, and you’d decided that the vulgar house guests were absolutely incongruous with the rest of the very typically ‘Sina Estate’ location.

The inside of the house was equally nice too, of course, juxtaposed with rowdy drunkards and god-awful music bleeding through all the walls. Nice wooden furniture, some authentic-looking vases that were all too likely to be smashed by the end of the night, some crooked picture frames with famous art works no-one has heard of. Yeah, it definitely gave off that rich-person vibe.

For how rich the owner apparently was though, the booze tasted like piss.

Come to think of it, who did the house even belong to? You hadn’t even received an official invite, it was Marco who mentioned the party and texted you the location. Not that Marco was party animal. The thought of Marco drunk was kind of funny actually, your friend for a good solid few years now was practically an angel.

Where was Marco anyway?

After finishing your first drink and grabbing another (a can this time), you decide to go hunt for some people. It’s no good standing brooding over here like a loser, right?

You pass several people you recognise and plenty you don’t. Connie and Sasha are giggling and snorting over one another, Ymir is bullying Christa, and Armin is talking animatedly at some poor kid who looks like they’d rather be anywhere else in the world. There’s also that scary Annie girl making scowly faces in the corner, but you’d really rather not bother any of them. Just when you begin contemplating skulking off to the kitchen (if you can navigate your way around the trillion rooms this place seems to have), you spot the unmissable forehead of your best friend Marco Bodt surrounded by a harem of tittering girls.

And whoa, what happened here?

“Yo,” you say cautiously, eyes darting suspiciously to the number of empty bottles surrounding the group, to your friend’s pink cheeks that look like they’ve been slapped a few times by inebriation, to the sloppy grin plastered on his face and to the way his eyes near enough sparkle when he spots you. 

Marco looks drunk. Marco looks very drunk.

“This is gonna be good,” you mutter under your breath.  
“Jean!” he exclaims, lurching over to you. As if the Bambi eyes weren’t enough, he’s got the freaking legs of a baby deer too.  
“’Sup, Marco.”  
“M’so glad you’re here! Everyone said thatchyou wouldn’t turn’p, and that you’re an antisoshhial dick’ed…” You cock him an eyebrow. “But I knew y’would, so I win.”  
“Excellent,” you reply flatly.  
“Why’reya ssssolate?” His words are all smeared together and it shouldn’t be so funny to see him like this, but it is.  
“Car broke down. Had to flag down some guy to help me fix it,” you say. “Said it was good to run for a little bit but I’m still gonna have to take it to a mechanic…” you trail off. He’s staring at you with glassy eyes and the kind of vacant facial expression 15 year old girls make when they’re in love, and if you didn’t know any better you would say Marco has the hots for you. “You OK, buddy?”  
“M’jusssst really really gladchyou’re here,” he says quietly, touching his fingers to his collarbone, then down his sides like he’s just dying to take his shirt off. You scoff.  
“What’s up with you?”  
“C’mere,” he says, and pulls you into a tight embrace. Taken only a little by surprise, you awkwardly pat him on the back a few times. He was always more for physical affection than you were.  
“Whoa, heh, alright…”  
“Jean, yer ssso sssuper bony…” he murmurs into your neck, poking you in the sides, palms trailing down your hips. You clamp your fingers around his wrists – OK, that is quite enough of that.  
“Jeez, aren’t we a little handsy?” you grumble, pushing his hand away from your waist.  
“Hugging’sa cusshtomary greeting’n Europe!” he slurs. What the hell happened to goody-goody-straight-laced-baby-faced Marco?  
“That’s kissing, idiot.”  
“Wanna try that too?” he says devilishly. You frown at him.  
“Who the hell let Marco drink?” you call out to the surrounding area, and of course the group of girls giggle and cheer, brandishing some grim-looking electric blue stuff in bottles.

“He’s been talking about yooouu,” one of the girls says, Mina is it? She looks awfully tipsy and you can’t help but wonder how much you’ve missed.  
“Oh, yeah?”  
“Jean, less move t’Paris, then we’d greet ‘chother with kissessss all the time,” Marco says airily. He’s not even looking at you, he’s staring into a painting hanging skewed on the wall.  
“Are you just drunk, or high as well?” you ask dryly. Some blonde guy with the most impressive sideburns you’ve ever seen (Thomas? – hell, you don’t know the names of half the people here) mentions something about people getting high in the basement, but you elect to ignore this information.

And then it’s a dull half hour just talking and sipping cider from a can and people being ‘bubbly’, with Marco occasionally touching you and laughing too loud. It isn’t long before you start to want to hit something. Parties always make you agitated.

 

So, when one Eren Jaeger swaggers into the room with the cockiest smirk on his face and eyes wilder than ever, you almost feel pleased. You’ve had some beef with him in the past (partly regarding his undoubtedly gorgeous half-sister, who you are totally over now, totally), and you think if he makes a dumbass-enough move tonight, it will give you the perfect opportunity to throw around a punch or two. Or five. 

Eren is chugging a Jaegerbomb, and it doesn’t surprise you because he is definitely the sort of dickbag who would drink to his own name.

“Oi, Jaeger!” you call. You’re in the mood for provoking some shitheads. “Didn’t know you’d be here.” He snaps his head in your direction, looking completely wired. Eren on Red Bull is probably biggest mistake since you gushing to Mikasa about her ‘lustrous black hair’ (your own words, sadly) back in freshman year, but you snort at him anyway.  
“Kirschtein!” he squawks, although it sounds more like a crude version of ‘Kirsten’.  
“How’d you get here tonight then, Mommy drop you off?” you taunt. Everyone knows about Eren’s weirdly close relationship with his mom after some shit that went down a few years back (there had been some dodgy rumours about his father too, who had ditched them shortly after), and you know you’re treading on some very thin ice here but you can’t seem to help yourself. 

“Don’tchyou talkshhhit ‘bout my mother!”  
“Does that mean I’m right?”  
“Shuddup! Kirschtein, you’re’n asshole!”  
“What you gonna do about it?” you shoot back with a wild grin. It’s almost an invitation. He’s clearly overreacting but you want to see just how far you can push him before he snaps and starts whirling his fists in that fitful way he does.  
“S’that a challenge?” he screeches, god, his voice is an ear ache. You watch with almost a sick excitement as he stomps up to you, thrusting his chin out like some proud bird.  
“Calm down, Eren,” comes the cool voice of Mikasa from behind him and although you’re totally over her (totally) you have to admit that she’s as completely flawless as ever.  
“So what if it is?” you grin. “Just make sure Mikasa’s there to pick you up off the floor after I deck you.” Something in the back of your head is warning you to drop it but you feel as if you really can’t. 

Then his face falls into something of an eerie calm, his eyes burning into yours, and you wonder if you should prepare for the oncoming storm. But he just stares instead, his mouth set into a thin line and says calmly, a little slurred, “Jean, at least I have people that care about me.”

His words don’t register at first, you’re a little stunned. What? Care about him? People totally care about you. You whip your head around. These people care about you, right? All the people talking to each other, chatting to one another, laughing… They care… Right?

You only allow yourself a semi-second of vulnerability before snatching his shirt into an angry balled fist and releasing an embarrassingly strangled growl.

“Shut the fuck up!” you yell. You’re vaguely aware of the people around you dropping silent to gawk at the potential fight and you’re itching itching itching to hit something.  
You tighten your fist and Eren Jaeger just smiles a drunken ugly grin because he knows he’s got you. 

That’s it, your fist is raised and aimed right smack in between his bulging eyes, but suddenly a sturdy hand is on your shoulder and you whip around ready to spew some abuse before you actually realise who it is. It’s Marco, and his eyes are soft and his cheeks are red and he’s nowhere near sober but he’s giving you that look he does with the sparkling eyes and the stern eyebrows that says ‘don’t do that, Jean’, so you don’t. You shrug Eren away and he gives you an exaggerated scowl but leaves you alone.

Both of Marco’s hands are on your shoulders and he’s scooting you away from the scene even though he’s not even that steady on his feet himself. You contemplate protesting but you don’t (you just sulk instead) because you know from experience that Marco is almost always right, and he’s still probably an excellent judge of any situation even when intoxicated.

You’re not quite sure where he’s taking you, but he’s half-singing ‘cheer up, sleepy Jean’ out of tune in your ear, so you know you must have really acted out because he only sings to you (only partly ironically, you lament, because Marco is the sort of person who would sing to you for real if you asked him) when you’re in the worst of moods. You blaze him a sardonic sneer.

“Don’t pronounce my name like that.”  
“Oh what can it mean?” he sings. Fucking Marco. You bite down a smile. You’re still angry. Angry and you want to kick someone’s teeth in. You don’t normally go looking for fights but there’s something, something about tonight that’s making you frustrated. Maybe it’s the tuneless humming in your ear. Or maybe it’s the rackety music that seems to be getting louder with every step you both take. Wait. It is getting louder.

“Marc-” You stop short when he slings his arms over your shoulder and faces you head on. You feel a lot shorter than him all of a sudden, and you have to catch your breath because whoa, that’s a little too close for comfort right there.  
“You know,” he says with a gaze that is much too heated for your liking. “Your shoulders are ssso sssuper tense.”  
“Huh?”  
“Think s’time you loosssened up a bit.”  
“What the hell has gotten into you?” you question, forcing yourself to be amused at the fingers that he’s trailing over the back of your neck instead of terrified and confused.  
“Love, love, I’m in llllove,” he blurts out suddenly in a sing-songy voice, then looks mildly embarrassed. The dumb patch of red on the tip of his nose lights up. Aha, you think, everything makes sense now. You laugh at him, slap him on the back.  
“Hey, listen, if you’re into some girl, don’t you think you should be screwing around with her instead of me?” you joke, feeling the control of the situation subtly shift over to you.  
“Forgeddit,” he says cheerily, then lets you go. You blink and decide that Marco has long surpassed the point of lucidity. So much for his supposed role of the voice-of-reason.

“C’mon, Jean!” he slurs excitedly, but you don’t feel quite detached from yourself enough yet. He takes you by the hand. You’re surprised by how familiar it feels. You and Marco have been close friends for a good few years, and you’ve touched plenty of times; wrestling, sharing food, playing video games, just messing about like guys do. But tonight it feels different. Tonight his fingers feel clumsy and eager and much, much less platonic. His palms are sweating and his skin is too clammy, but you follow him anyway. You’re not entirely sure why, so you blame it on the pint and a half of cider you’ve consumed. “Let’s dance!”  
“No fucking way.” He’s guided you both next to the expensive-looking Hi-Fi system, right where the music is thumping excruciatingly loudly into the room which has been unofficially sectioned off as the ‘dance floor’, and although you try your hardest to protest his gently swaying hips and frankly ridiculous dance moves, your voice is drowned out by trashy music from 2010.

You think it might be Ke$ha.

After a while you finally start to relax a little and even follow Marco’s lead and you decide although the lyrics are repetitive and the vocals would sound a whole lot better without the slapped on auto tune, ‘Your Love Is My Drug’ is actually sort of catchy.

Marco’s cheesy-ass grin is ever-present and you know everything about dancing like this is corny, but for some reason it makes you feel better. It’s like Marco always knows the right things to do and say, especially for you. To be honest, there hasn’t ever been a moment when he hasn’t been entirely willing to dance to shitty music just to make you feel better, and you doubt there ever will be.

And then it hits you. Eren was wrong. Marco cares.

With a flickering grin you’re not 100% aware you’re making, you suddenly lose yourself a bit, like you’re not even there anymore. You think you feel Marco’s chest pushed up against yours and if he were the type he would be close enough to pretty much grind on you, you catch his eye and he gives you a sloppy grin, too sheepish to hold for long but there’s something different in his expression, something you’ve never seen before. His hands are on your body, you don’t register where or why but it’s OK because nothing really seems to matter much right now, it’s just you and you’re best bud dancing the night away and whoa, wait, his forehead is on your forehead and that’s definitely too close, what the heck has gotten into him tonight? You swallow thickly as he brushes your cheek with his fingers a little (you think) and everything is suddenly too slow and too hot, way too hot, and bizarrely you think, fuck, is Marco going to kiss you? You feel a little flushed and dizzy and the air has been sucked from your lungs and you close your eyes for a second too long and Marco is gone, disappearing in the frenzy of jerking bodies and music.

Then you’re back in your own body at a shitty party and the music is too loud.

“Weird,” you say out loud, but you can hardly feel the vibrations in your throat so you go find another cider or maybe a beer or something, the cider is pretty shitty.


	2. Part 2

Feeling a little dazed, you push your way out of the room only to be met by a pink-faced Armin. You’re not great friends with Armin (he sticks to Jaeger a lot, or at least used to, so you tend to keep your distance) but you know he and Marco hang out to study (Marco tells you you’re a massive distraction), so you stop to nod your head in a greeting. He kind of sways on the spot. Come to think of it, why are all the straight-A kids acting so weird tonight? Do they ever drink at all?

“You OK, dude?” you ask.  
“Force is equal to mass times acceleration,” he replies vaguely.  
“Right… Cool…” Wow. This is starting to feel like some weird trip, maybe you should join the guys in the basement.  
“Work is equal to force times distance.”  
“Sure, sure thing.”  
“Thingsa gonna work out for Marco,” Armin slurs. “Force times distance.” At the mention of your friend’s name, you perk up.  
“Hey, Armin, you seen Marco around here anywhere?”  
“No, haven’t seen him.”  
“He’s been acting real strange tonight, really…” you gesture with your hands but you’re not sure how to put it into words. Handsy? Touch-y? Clingy.  
“You know, Jean,” Armins says, his eyes drooping just a little. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something more to Marco…”  
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Before you can question Armin further on his cryptic words, he shakes his blonde head and a hand slaps your back, jolting you forward. It isn’t Armin’s though, or Marco’s or even Jaeger’s; you turn around to meet a lanky, tan girl with a sharp face dusted with dark freckles, and she grins at you with an almost leering expression.

“Yo, Kirschtein.”  
“’Sup, Ymir,” you mutter.  
“Gonna come play ‘Would You Rather’ with us? You too, Arlert.”

You can’t say you’re in the mood for party games so you shrug Ymir’s man-hand off your shoulder with a brief ‘nah’ and turn away, but she grips you by the upper arm and yanks both you and Armin into following her.

“Tough shit, we need more players.”

 

Half-ashamed that you didn’t struggle to get out of Ymir’s iron grasp, you stumble into a room where a bunch of kids have made a circle, some perched on two opposing couches and others crammed on the floor next to a chic-looking glass coffee table that has been shoved into a corner to allow everyone to see one another. You dimly wonder why there is no campfire or a chorus of cheesy campfire songs.

And before long the game starts. Sitting on the edge of the circle, you get to enjoy hearing drunken answers to questions such as ‘Would you rather face a zombie attack or a shark attack?’ or ‘Would you rather smell shit for the rest of your life or smell like shit for the rest of your life?’ or ‘Would you rather have sex with your best friend’s boyfriend or have sex with your boyfriend’s best friend’. It’s only when it gets to your turn that you decide you should probably start paying attention instead of making scowly faces at Eren, who you have noticed is sat next to Marco on the other side of the room. Marco apparently turned up to play then.

“Would you rather… mack on a fuck-ugly chick, or a smokin’ hot guy?” Ymir asks, her coarse voice cutting through the lively babble.  
“Ach, come on,” you snort.  
“Answer the question, no bullshit.”  
“I don’t bullshit. I’d go for the guy,” you snap, maybe a little too eagerly. A few kids whistle, you just deadpan them.  
“Pretty shallow’f you,” Eren taunts and you shoot the crowd a sour glance until you notice Marco making some serious bedroom eyes at you from across the circle. That makes you very, very fucking nervous.  
“What if the chick has a really great personality?” Connie pipes up, and you vaguely notice Sasha spanking the back of his bald little head. You don’t grace him with a reply and soon the game has slid neatly onto the person next to you.

 

You sit still, trying to numb yourself from the rest of the party because all you really wanted to do tonight was get drunk and maybe get in a fight or two, but as it so happens, looks like someone beat you to it this time.

“The big dudes are wrestling!” a guy hollers from the doorway, splitting up the circle instantly with whoops of excitement. You don’t need to go and see what the fuss is about because you know who the ‘big dudes’ are (Reiner and Bertholdt, of course) and they are always ‘wrestling’. It’s a spectacle, sure (the hulk of muscle between them could probably knock a couple of walls down), but you’ve seen it all before. 

Instead, your eyes settle on one of the stragglers, Marco, who is wobbling his way over to you.

“Jean!” he exclaims. You get to your feet just in time for him to barrel you onto an empty couch.  
“Jesus,” you mutter, pushing him off you and trying to regain your breath. The force of him knocked the wind from you a little.  
“Marco s’fine,” he chuckles. He pulls his legs up onto the couch and rests gently against you. He’s warmer than usual, you feel the heat from his skin radiating onto your bare arm. Why is he so warm?  
“How’s it going?” you grimace.  
“Better now’m with yoou,” he jokes.  
“Missed me, baby?” you reply with the driest tone you can muster.  
“Mm,” he agrees, taking a swig at another putrid-looking drink in his hands. You shoot him a sidelong glance and notice the first couple of button on his shirt have come undone. You roll your eyes. So much for angel.

“Jean,” he says after a while in a low voice. “V’got somethin’ I need to tell you.”  
“Oh?” You eye the open shirt and you can see where this is going. Marco’s gonna get some. You’re almost jealous. You’re not though, of course – definitely not.  
“S’important.”  
“What is it, you getting lucky tonight?” you say with a smirk. “Here I was thinking you were the Virgin Mary or something.”  
“S’a very, very important secret so I needja to listen to me.” You laugh. This is beyond weird; you would never have imagined Marco being like this, all uncoordinated and sloppy. And you can’t imagine him with a girl at all either. He’s a goody-two-shoes through and through, he’s probably actually waiting until his wedding night or some shit, but you decide to humour him anyway.  
“Who is it then?”

He leans very close to you – maybe closer than needed – then presses his mouth right up to your ear. He’s sighing a little and he lingers there for too long, as if he’s forgotten what he was going to say. It’s making your skin hot.

“Well…? This big secret?” you push, getting bored of waiting.  
“Jean…” he says.  
“What?”  
“I’m…”  
“Get on with it.”  
“I’m gonna throw up,” he whispers. 

Great.

 

Lugging Marco around the freaking mansion in search of a bathroom was more of a chore than you were anticipating because for all the goddamn rooms which housed more needlessly lush furniture and expensive plasma screen TVs, there was not a single toilet in sight available for Marco’s potential up-chucking. By the time you drag him up the stairs to the second story (which is pleasantly absent of people – and much light), you reckon he’s at least sobered up a little bit. 

That is, until he starts jabbering in a semi-slur about how amazing you are while you balance at the top of the staircase, deciding which direction to continue your pathetic bathroom-hunt.

“What they said about you was wrong, you know,” he says, gazing softly at you, only wavering a little bit on his feet. You hold onto him anyway, firmly, by the shoulder.  
“What?”  
“About you being shallow. You’re not. You’re stubborn and blunt to boot, but at least you’re honest. You’re not shallow.”  
“Marco, you’re drunk,” you sigh. “What the hell have you been drinking?”  
“Alcopops…The blue ones,” he replies, rubbing his neck and tracing his fingers along his own collarbone again. You think he should have worn a shirt that didn’t expose so much of his collarbone. And was less easy to unbutton. “Six of them.”  
“They’re deadly,” you mutter.  
“I don’t feel very well,” he says, and you want to shoot him the most belittling of glances but you can’t bring yourself to do it.  
“Oh, I wonder why.” Sarcasm and a half-hearted grimace is all you can muster.  
“I like you, Jean,” he says.

You almost drop him.

“What?”  
“I said I like you.”  
“Uh, I like you too, buddy…” you grunt, trying to dodge the possible implications of what he’s saying.  
“No, Jean, I like you. Like-like you…”  
“Haha… No you don’t,” you say through gritted teeth. You don’t have time for Marco going all weird on you, especially where he’s likely to pass out any second and you’re right near the stairs. At least it’s cooler up here, in this huge, partially-empty house. “You’ve had too much.”  
“I do!” he insists. He pushes his face closer to you and you back off on instinct; you notice his usual brush of freckles has been replaced by a flush of crimson and as much as you want to blame the way your heart palpitates on how jumped-up you’re feeling in general, you can’t help but feel a little electrified by the smell of the sickly-sweet alcohol on his breath.  
“Nope,” you wheeze. He’s breathing heavily on your cheeks and leaning on you unsteadily, so you make him slide down a wall on the landing just in case either of you decides to trip and fall and crash to your deaths on the horrendously steep staircase.  
“I like your funny two-toned hipster hair. Your face. And your eyes, Jean, they’re dangerous and I love them. I love the way you speak your mind. I love the way you know what to do, and you don’t take any crap from anyone. I love- I like you a lot, Jean.”  
“Shut up, Marco,” you cringe. “You wouldn’t say that stuff normally. Don’t say it now if you don’t mean it.”  
“I mean it! I was too scared to, before tonight.”  
“Oh yeah? So why now? Had a shot of vodka and some orange juice and now you’re feeling brave?” You don’t mean to sound so nasty, but of course you do. You always fucking sound nasty.  
“Don’t be mean,” he says, in a quiet voice that’s disturbingly sobering. “I don’t like it so much when you’re mean. Or angry.”  
“Sorry…” you mutter. 

He takes your hand again and you let him, for the sake of ease. You shake your head.

“You get angry when you drink,” he comments, and you want to roll your eyes at him for all that it’s worth.  
“And what are you? The soppy drunk?”  
“Actually,” he says, dropping his voice right down as if he’s about to tell a secret too scandalous for even the alcohol to swathe. “I’ve been feeling kinda turned on all evening.”  
You choke out an embarrassed laugh because you’re holding hands with your apparently aroused best friend and that in itself is almost too much to handle. “The horny drunk then?” you splutter. Your face is too hot. Your whole body is too hot. You think you should go sit outside but some masochistic part of you wants to stay right where you are.  
“I guess…” he says sheepishly. Sarcastic banter is such a challenge when everything he says is in such innocent earnest.  
“Is all this an attempt to bed me?” you joke, nudging his shoulder. When he doesn’t come back with the expected quip, just sits in red silence, your skin prickles. “Oh,” you breathe. To your surprise he squeezes your hand.  
“I’ve thought about it,” he says, avoiding eye contact. “I’ve thought about a lot of things.”  
“Oh,” you say again, because that’s all you can manage. You can’t look him in the eye either. You stare at the plush carpet instead. “Uh.”  
“I think about holding your hand and hugging you and breathing in the smell of that chocolate deodorant you’ve worn every day since the first day of sophomore year. You always smell like chocolate, did you know that, Jean?”  
“Um…” It’s a dull pink, all fluffy and hardly walked on. You wonder if it’s new while trying so hard to not take Marco’s slightly slurred words to heart.  
“You know what’s sad?”  
“This,” you reply bitterly under your breath, but he either doesn’t hear or ignores you.  
“I bought a can of Dark Temptation. I never wear it, just spray it once in a while, when I’m miserable. It’s not the same though. Remember when you left your sweater at mine that one time? I told you I’d lost it, but really I wanted to keep it because it smelled so much like you. I felt guilty for weeks,” he says. It’s so openly honest, it kind of makes you shiver. “I slept with it, you know. It lost the smell of you eventually. But I still have it.”  
“Why are you saying this?” you ask. Your voice falters at the image of Marco alone in his room, curled up in his bed, huffing the worn green jacket you presumed long gone, pressing it close to his cheeks. You want to push the picture from your mind but you can’t. “Why now?”  
“Because!” he yells, tugging down on your arm. It takes you by surprise, Marco is never usually so forceful. “Because if don’t say it all now, I never will. I’ve felt like this for a long time, and I can’t- I don’t want it to be a secret anymore. Even if you end up hating me, I can’t lie to you. You hate lies.”

It dawns on you suddenly that what he is saying may be very, very real indeed, not just an extended flirtatious joke driven by inebriation. Marco has feelings for you – serious feelings – and god, does it frighten you. You grind your teeth together and claw at the carpet beside you. You think you start to feel bits of fluff snag under your nails. 

What now? What are you supposed to think? 

Warm skin on your cheek makes you jump, and it takes you more than a second to realise it’s just Marco’s fingers. They’re sweaty and you can feel them trembling, and you’re washed with a watery guilt that makes you aware of what you’ve been unintentionally doing to him all this time – if what he says is true. Whatever he’s been feeling for you must be making him feel more than a little bit shitty, crushing on his best friend and all that. Having a regular crush on someone from a distance is pain enough. You almost feel kind of pitying, but that’s not really your style. At least, you tell yourself it’s not. 

He eases your head around so you have to face him again. You’re close enough that you can count the beads of sweat on his upper lip and make out each individual small brown freckle, but not so that his features are all blurred and although you’ve been this near to each other plenty of times, something feels off. His breaths are falling too heavily, his eyes are tinged with red and are shining too much, his hand is far, far too gentle on your sharp cheekbone, his lips are parted and…

“Say something, Jean,” he rasps. You quickly snap shut the mouth you hadn’t realised you’d left hanging open. He sounds so strained. This isn’t the Marco you know. The Marco you know is placid and mild and calm and definitely not so sultry-looking, not so desperate-looking. Fuck. Absolutely fuck no, you tell yourself, you’re not going to do this. You’re going to ignore the hand he’s dropped from your face to your thigh, you’re going to ignore the hungry glint to his hooded eyes that are usually so open and friendly. Friend, you remind yourself. Friend. Marco is your friend. 

But this isn’t Marco. And you’re not yourself either, tipsy on metallic-tasting cider and the dizzy atmosphere and the temptation to believe that this, right here – with your hand pressed into his palm, with his fingers digging into your jeans, with his jagged breaths and your shuddering heartbeat, crouched against a cold wall where no-one could see you if you did dare to brush lips – might be OK.

You watch him tip his head to one side, and then it hits you that this is really it, oh my god, he’s really going to do this after all. His sweet breath is so close it’s practically yours to share, and suddenly you can’t get enough air so you just fucking swallow your pride and begin to lean into him, you can deal with the consequences later, you decide. You’re shivering and so hot, but he’s right there and he’s looking so damn alluring that you can nearly feel the electricity between you, and you have to, you just have to.

“Jean,” he murmurs.  
“Mm?” You touch your free hand to his neck, and before you know it, you start to feel yourself slipping away into a toxic mixture of alcohol and the unexpected tender ache to kiss him on the damn mouth.  
“I lov-“

 

“SPIN! THE! BOTTLE!”

Fuck. Some moron crashes up the stairs to drunkenly chant at the top of their voice, and you wrench your face and hand away from Marco in a jolt of humiliation and regret and it’s such painful embarrassment that all you can do is bite down on the inside of your cheek and completely blank him. Fuck, fuck. Fuck, that was much too close. You hardly notice yourself shaking as you stumble hurriedly down to stairs to join in the game someone is dragging you both to.


	3. Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more short chapters, then a longer one :) Hope you guys are enjoying it!

“Everyone knows the rules, right?” Connie yells, who apparently has become game master. “One person spins and has to kiss whoever the bottle lands on! Then, whoever that is has to spin again, and then the game continues!”  
“What if someone doesn’t wanna kiss the other person?!” a girl (who sounds completely sloshed) cries.   
“Forfeit! Forfeit!” comes the chanting of several others.

Brilliant. How the hell you got roped into another thing like this, you will never know. At least it got you away from Marco though - that was some weird shit about to go down.

You watch the game with only a dull awareness of what is going on; the circle is the same setup as last time, with people shoving closer to get in on the action, but this time an empty glass bottle whirling around in the centre. People yell too much. And everyone is kissing, slapping saliva around like pass the fucking parcel. Psh, as if you didn’t feel nauseous enough already, but now there’s just that supressed need to punch someone in the jaw bubbling away underneath your skin again.

Marco sat apart from you, and for now at least, you blank him as much as possible. It was kind of weird just now, sat on the landing together. You dunno what came over you. Or him. You figure he’ll forget about it soon enough though, if you leave him alone.

 

It’s only when you noticed Marco shuffling into the centre of the circle to peck some girl shyly on the cheek that your heart jumps suddenly against your ribs. You tell yourself not to be a complete idiot and that wow, what an overreaction to a totally normal thing, but you don’t like that sight. You don’t like it at all. You don’t like his flushed and freckled face in the face of another girl and fuck, you really try to convince yourself you’re not jealous but the gurgling in your stomach knows you are. You watch with dark, tightened eyes while your best friend dozily spins the bottle which will lead to more of Marco’s awkward virginal cheek-kisses with faceless and nameless people you don’t know.

“For fuck’s sake…” you snort under your breath.

You sigh huffily, tipping your head back against the arm of the couch you’re leant against in order to blank out the scene before you. You can’t be dealing with this. Not right now. All this bullshit and these idiots and-

“Kirschtein?!”

The circle grows quiet and you snap your head upwards at the sound of your name. 

“Ahaha, no way!”   
“Jean, of all people?”  
“So close to Annie, man, imagine that.”  
“Harsh luck, yo.”  
“No sweet ladies for Marco this time, haha.”

“What?” you grunt, trying to locate where the babble of voices came from, and the reason why no-one else is talking. Then you notice it. The neck of the bottle facing your way, staring you down. The opening a neat ‘O’ that is mocking you silently. Oh. 

“Ah, shit,” you mutter. This cannot be happening right now.

“Go on then, you’re the one who was gushing about Jean before, right?” someone giggles and it makes you so uneasy. Marco looks ill.   
“Yeah, you were saying how you thought he was such a good guy.”  
“And how you wanted him at the party.”  
“Yeah!”

A few members of the circle laugh and Marco tries his best to join in but he looks distinctly less chilled than he was before you hauled him upstairs. You try your best to ignore the comments as much as they make you a little hot under the collar.

“Kiss him!” someone cries. “If you kiss him, two of the girls will kiss!”   
“Christa and Ymir!” someone else suggests boisterously (probably Ymir), then the air is suddenly filled loud cheers amongst the drunken burbles and sloshing drinks and bad music and the gross smell of sweaty bodies and booze and you feel sicker than Marco looks. You watch him crawling towards you on his hands and knees, urged on by the excitable crowd. You waver a little before pulling the drink out of the hand of whoever is sat next to you and downing it in one. If you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna need to be more drunk. 

The alcohol burns at your throat in a way you’re not expecting, and you can only assume that you’ve just downed a shot of neat vodka, and Christ, do you feel dizzy all of a sudden. Who the fuck drinks neat vodka at a high school party? 

Whatever. You try hard to focus on the red face of your good friend Marco and try equally as hard to block out the rowdy onlookers. It’s just one dumb kiss, right? He pretty much said he wanted to do it anyway. You damn well nearly did it not twenty minutes ago. Might as well get it over with while you have an excuse.

Marco shuffles up to you and avoids all eye contact. You can see his chest heaving through the buttons that are undone on his pale blue shirt – out of nerves or anticipation, you can’t tell. You can see how his shoulders fill it out so nicely, his flesh underneath the fabric. You’ve never noticed how much he’s grown since you met him late freshman year; he was always tall, but gangly before, his forehead too big for the rest of his face. Now that you’re starting your senior year he’s become broader, more muscular, better looking but still baby-faced enough to remain Marco. God, you think to yourself, he got hot. He got really hot.

Fingers on your jaw make you jump, and you’re dumb for falling for that twice. You feel him shaking too, like some pathetic animal drenched in cold water. He doesn’t look like he wants to do this – and to be honest, you don’t blame him; the entire crowd is breathing hot down your necks and there’s a pulsing of their voices that doesn’t match the racing of your heart, throwing everything off balance. His lips are slack and red and he looks so sick – but the circle keeps clapping and whooping as you carefully ease into him, your hand fumbling for some sort of hold too. You attempt to swallow the ugly lump in your throat. 

“You look like hell,” you whisper.   
“I’m really sorry, Jean.”  
“What about?”   
“This.” 

Your heart judders when you feel Marco’s lips graze your open mouth, and you almost want to pull his entire body into you and kiss him back with the enthusiasm he probably deserves – but you can’t, because he falters, stumbles backwards and then staggers hastily away, forcing his way through the stunned crowd. He leaves you hanging like a goddamn idiot with your mouth wide open. Shit.

“Wow, Jean, that bad?” Eren yells. Shit, shit, shit. You think about reeling on Eren and slamming your fist into his brattish face but you can’t even move because Marco just ran away from you. He ran the fuck away from you.   
“Is he OK?” comes the voice of Armin.   
“Probably gone to puke his guts out or something,” you say with a forced shrug, standing up with knees weaker than you were expecting. No-one questions you leaving the circle.

 

The kitchen area is massive but nearly empty, aside from a couple in the corner whispering sweet slurred nothings to each other loud enough for you to hear. Shakily, you pluck a warm can of cider from the counter and sit in one of those tall chairs only rich people seem to have, perching yourself at the breakfast bar. 

Now what? 

You sup your cider miserably. It tastes worse than the first one. Where the hell is Marco? Where did he run off to? Outside? Home? Another room, to drink more fucking alcohol, just like you? God knows what he’s up to but Christ, do you feel guilty. You guess there’s really no need to be – it’s not like any of this is exactly your fault, right? – but you do anyway.

Sitting in silence, with only the sickening cooing in the corner and the sloppy cheers from the other rooms to break it, you run the events over again in your head. Then you think about Marco some more. What’s his deal anyway? What’s your deal? What even is your relationship now, now secrets have been spilt, now he’s run away when given the perfect opportunity to do exactly what he said he wanted to? Was he telling the truth about being into you in the first place, or was he just shitting you? No way, Marco wouldn’t do that, Marco wouldn’t lead you on. He’s a good kid. He’s a perfect kid. He’s perfect. 

But – he is a guy and he’s your best friend and that’s definitely not a road you’d like to lurch drunkenly down. Is it?

Fuck, you’re on your second empty can before you haul yourself away from the kitchen to stumble back up the stairs to hunt for him. It’s the only thing that’s going to make you feel better, talking to him; drowning the ache in your stomach with cheap-ass booze is not helping in the slightest.


	4. Part 4

“Marco!” you slur, holding onto the banister. “Where in the fuck- Marco!”

You try a number of doors but all the rooms are empty and smell like they haven’t been used in months. You’re close to giving up and staggering your way outside instead (maybe he went to get some air?) when the final door you try swings open to reveal a large-ish bathroom and a too-bright light glaring into your eyeballs. 

And there he is.

He’s sat on the bathroom floor, near to the toilet bowl, shoulders hunched and curled in on himself in that way he does when he’s feeling vulnerable. You notice his eyes are rimmed redder than they were before, his cheeks are stained a darker, patchier pink, and they’re dripping with what you really hope aren’t tears. His fingers and neck are wet too and there’s a pile of screwed toilet paper beside him. It makes your stomach drop; you shake your head in disbelief, attempting sympathetic but somehow managing disappointed. You feel awful.

“Fuck, Marco, have you been crying?”  
“No,” he says immediately. You slap the door shut and kneel next to him, tenderly as you can manage on unsteady legs.   
“Don’t lie to me.”  
“I’ve- I haven’t been crying.”  
“Jesus, Marco, look at you. You’re a mess.”  
“I know.”  
He sniffles, brushing used tissues to one side.

“I thought kissing and shit was what you wanted?” You push a tear away from his cheek with your thumb, propping up his chin. You feel like his mother or some shit. He is always the one looking after you when you get into crap, it feels weird the other way around. It doesn’t feel nice, seeing your friend like this.   
“I did want it. I still do,” he murmurs. “But not like that. Not with everyone watching. Not with you sneering at me. I couldn’t do it like that.”  
“It’s only a kiss, it’s no big deal for them. It-it’s not a big deal for me either. If… if you wanted to do it,” you offer lamely. Your head is starting to swim.   
“It’s a big deal for me,” he replies firmly. “I don’t want to kiss you if it doesn’t mean anything.” His eyes are shining and you will him not to cry, because there is just no way you’d be able to handle that. You never were too good with the touchy-feely emotional garbage Marco was so fond of. Even with girls, you were never quite so eloquent as he was with anyone, really. But now you’re all about emotions, holed up in a posh bathroom, sobbing about how you both feel. How do you feel? You sure as fuck know how Marco feels about you. But what about how you feel about him? Can you truthfully say that you’re still strictly thinking about Marco as just a friend?

Ah fuck, you’re already so tangled up in Marco Bodt and it’s only taken an hour since him confessing. 

But maybe it’s the buzz of the alcohol in the back of your skull.

“Hey, I…” you mutter.   
“I’ve made a real idiot of myself, haven’t I?” he wobbles. You grimace.   
“I ain’t gonna lie, I’ve seen some shit from you tonight I was never expecting.”  
“Oh my god, Jean, I’ve ruined this.”  
“Ruined what?”  
“Our friendship!” he wails, welling up again – shit, shit, don’t cry, damnit.   
“Hey, no you haven’t.”  
“I have! My worst fear is losing you and I’ve managed to cause that all by myself! It was my stupid fault for falling so hard for you and never saying a stupid thing about it until now, and it’s my stupid fault for handling it all so horribly. What was I thinking, what was I think-”  
“Shut up,” you cut in through clenched teeth. Marco shuts up. “Yeah,” you say, with a brash, honest nod. “Yeah, you could’ve handled it better by not needing to get wasted to say something to me about it, but fucking hell, Marco, you haven’t ruined anything. I’m not-” You gag on the sentiment that’s snagged in your throat. God, you hate breaking down your barriers.   
“Jean…” he sighs softly, suddenly sounding utterly enamoured and it’s so raw and scratchy in his throat that you have to choke out the next words.  
“I’m not going anywhere.”

And for the millionth time tonight, you hold onto his damn hand. Maybe a man less honest than you would convince himself it was a perfectly heterosexual-man-to-man-support-hand-hold, but it’s not, it’s nothing of the sort, and you know it.

He wipes his face on his free sleeve.

“Can we… can we sit like this for a little bit?”  
“Yeah,” you sigh. “Sure.”

His fingers tighten and you begin to wonder just how much about Marco you don’t know after all. This was certainly unexpected, right? All those years of hanging out together, of late nights and early mornings, of games and banter and joking and laughing, of your sour moods and his bright eyes… how well do you really know him?

 

“Say, Marco, are you…” You falter. How the hell do you phrase this?   
“Uh-huh?” he says his voice small and kind of hoarse.   
“Are you, you know…?”  
“Gay?” he suggests with a bitten back smile. You cough a little. Of course he knows what you mean. He always knows. Although, you honestly never thought you’d be having this conversation with him. Frankly, Marco’s pussy game was weak as shit anyway, but it never occurred to you he might actually be otherwise inclined. You’re so dense, you think. Not perceptive like Marco. You call it like you see it. Marco already knows what ‘it’ is. Marco sees things in people no-one else notices, all you do is make people feel shittier. 

“Yeah,” you mutter.   
“Maybe?” he says carefully, shirking his hand away from you to rub the back of his neck. Your palm feels cold. “I mean, who knows? Yeah, maybe I am.”   
“’Cus it’s totally OK if you are and everything, that’s fine. It- it’s totally fine.” God, could the conversation get more stunted? It’s never usually this awkward with him. “But I’m not, or anything. Gay, I mean.”

It’s quiet for a second, and you have a creeping suspicion that he’s going to burst into tears. But then he doesn’t.

“That’s alright,” he says with an honest smile. “I’m glad you at least let me down gently.” He elbows you playfully in the rib – his mood suddenly lifting – and begins to scramble to his feet, but all you can do is sit like a stone. Wait, wait. No. You don’t want him to go just yet. Shit. You can’t tell if it’s the bad cider keeping you down or the sinking feeling of being dismissed so quickly.   
“Hold up,” you slur. “That’s not what I meant.”  
“So you are gay?” You swear he is hiding a smirk. A sad smirk, but a smirk nonetheless.   
“No, fuck.”  
“Then what are you saying?” He looks at you with golden eyes and suddenly it seems like you’ve known Marco for years and years and years.

You shrug brusquely with your head beginning to go all fuzzy at the edges, and attempt getting to your feet – but he’s there all of a sudden, on his knees, right in your space on the floor in front of you. Your heart jerks a little.

“Hey, what-” you begin and for a brief, terrifying second you think he’s going to lean in and push his lips to your mouth, but he doesn’t, he just holds your gaze steady. You dizzily tell yourself you’re not sad about it.   
“All of this doesn’t change our friendship, right?” he asks, more of a confirmation really, gently touching your elbow. He looks calm but his fingers are still quivering.   
“’Course not.”  
“Good,” he says. 

The arms wedging under yours and winding around your chest are sudden but warm and firm, and some solid, definite contact is a relief compared to the awkward physical interaction you’ve been skirting around all night. It still takes you by surprise though. Marco has been nothing but surprises this evening. His body is sturdy and you can feel his heat starting to ease your muscles and before you know it, your nervous arms are locked around his shoulders too because Marco was always a hugger and you were always the reluctant recipient, so it comes all too naturally to you. Except, you’re really not that reluctant this time round.

His heart is beating against you.

You feel him gripping onto the back of your shirt and breathing in a little deeper than he needs to, but you let him. You let him bury his face into your shoulder so his hair tickles your lip; let his body sink into your open arms; let him have you to himself, just for a second, because you figure that’s the least you can do. He sighs shakily into you and it’s dangerously close to giving you shivers, but that’s when you notice he’s also wearing the exact same deodorant – woody and kinda fruity – as he has been doing for as long as you can remember. He smells kinda good. You angle your head to smell it better and fuck, fuck, fuck, he smells really good. You want to breathe in the scent of his skin until the sun dyes the sky orange, but you can’t allow yourself that. You can’t be developing fleeting crushes on Marco, especially with what you just blatantly confirmed. You’ll only hurt him more than you already have. Fuck.

You sit on the bathroom floor holding each other for longer than you care to know, until your head clears and he’s laughing softly into your ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone! :)


	5. Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long-ass chapter this time! ;)

It’s hours later and neither of you have brought up the subject again. You made him drink 3 consecutive glasses of water and you both scrounged up whatever snacks were available (seriously, talk about a shitty host), before he told you to relax and that you should enjoy the rest of the party. You muttered that you weren’t enjoying it that much in the first place and he shakes his head and smiles in a way that is so quintessentially Marco, slightly shy but also somehow self-assured, that you find yourself surprised by the way your pulse quickens when he does it.

It’s other little things as well, that make you feel nervous in ways they didn’t before. You feel hyperaware of him. It’s the genuine softness of his voice, the curl of his lips when you make him laugh, the patchy blush on the tip of his nose; it’s the way you want him to put his hands on your hips again, for whatever reason, it’s the way you want to be close to him. And it’s his freckles too, fuck, when did freckles get so attractive? When did Marco get so attractive? 

You find yourself drinking cherry shots with a closer-knit group of kids once the party has progressed and for the rest of the night you taste cherry on your tongue wondering if his mouth tastes like cherry too.

As time slips on, he just becomes more of a distraction. He’s distracting you with every single easy breath he takes, even after you promised yourself you couldn’t do this to yourself, or to him. Your mind is in constant turmoil of chalking it down to the atmosphere, the unusual events that have transpired, the hum of alcohol singing in your blood – or admitting that you’re very, very in love with him and have been forever.

Is this what falling in love feels like? The sickly sweet tremor that floods you whenever he’s close by. The newfound aching in your chest. The way you have to pinch your fingers into a fist to stop your dumb hands grasping at his in front of everyone. The way air seems pointless if he’s not next to you, and the way you can’t even breathe properly when he is.

Jesus, Kirschtein, when did you become such a sucker?

You’d both silently agreed to forget about everything before. You’d promised him nothing had changed. Everything should be just fine… Right?   
So why is it that, when you’re both lying side-by-side facing the ceiling fan on the floor of the half-empty dance room when the party is beginning to die out, listening to part 7 of Shine On You Crazy Diamond with the backs of your knuckles grazing once or twice more than what could be considered accidental, that you want nothing more in the entire world than to hold your stupid best friend in your arms and kiss him until your mouth goes numb?

Why is that?

 

“How’re you getting home, Jean?” he says as you’re exiting the house. You both decide to leave the party a little early, to avoid the inevitable passing out and the risk of being roped into the major clean-up job that would no doubt be needed tomorrow morning.  
“Huh? I was gonna take my car. Wanna ride back to your place?” you say. You brandish your car keys with a jangle, which by some miracle haven’t been lost or stolen.

You watch him fall back into the front porch swing chair as if he’s a child again and try not to find it completely endearing. 

“Jean!” he exclaims. “You can’t possibly drive! You’ve been drinking.” Voice-of-reason is back.   
“Yeah, I know, but I feel fine now. It’ll be fine.” Your house is far out, you really don’t feel like calling and paying for a cab. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”  
“Haha, no thanks!” he says. He tugs you by the wrist so you land on the swing chair next to him. You rock easily back and forth for a little bit. “I don’t want to die in a car crash,” he murmurs, as if he is remembering something.

Suddenly, violent images of him dead ravage your vision; ugly gashes across the right side of his face, bloody red rawness, his flesh ripped from him, missing limbs, bones in places they shouldn’t be, bleeding, eyes cold... You shudder to shake the thoughts from your head, slap your hand over your mouth.

“Shit,” you mutter, trying but failing to shrug the feeling away. It feels too familiar somehow. Like déjà vu.   
“What’s the matter?”  
“Let’s not take the car,” you say quietly. He nods, almost as if he understands. The mood lulls for a little bit, pressing heavy on your shoulders. You feel some unsettlingly familiar tension pushing into your temples, a dark pang in your stomach. You’re somewhere else for a moment. You’re a soldier and you’re flying – no, not quite flying, there are ropes lashed to you, there’s the mechanical whoosh of expelled gas and the sharp zip of a wire; your body is sore and there is blood, there’s broken glass and empty houses, ash and fire, horses, cloaks, blades, and there are giant, terrifying almost-human creatures thundering around you and there is screaming and death and chaos and-

 

Marco shifts next to you and you’re back on the porch swing. 

“How about we walk back to my place?” he says, smiling. “You can stay the night? It’s a half hour walk from here, only a few blocks away… but I don’t want you to drive.”  
“Sure,” you say, shaking yourself awake. Maybe someone spiked the cherry shots with some weird shit. “I’ll pick up the car in the morning. It’s a piece of junk anyway.”  
“Alright,” he says softly. You let out a long, whistling breath and relax into the cushion of the swing. Things with him are just so… easy. No hassle. No bullshit. 

Then you swing together in unison for a few minutes longer, feeling the cool night air bite at your ears and fingertips as it swishes between you. You think about how warm Marco is, how nice he’d be to sleep with. You think about how you could kick away your old ratty jacket from underneath his pillow and how he could have the whole of you instead; you think about how good his bed will smell, how comfortable his sheets will be. How soft his flesh will be as you press together, bare chest to bare chest. You want that. You might not tomorrow, or even the next day, but for now you want to be close to him.

“Spacing out, Jean?” he chirps, pulling you back again. Wow, maybe you really did have too much to drink.   
“Huh? Yeah…” you mutter.   
“It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?”   
“Uh… sure is.”

Quiet again. You try to look at the stars (he’s pointing out some constellation that you couldn’t care less about) but the universe seems so insignificant, so unimportant compared to everything that you’re feeling right now. 

“What are you thinking about…?” he asks. His tone is gentle as ever but tinged with a quiet eagerness.  
“Do you really think I have hipster hair?” you blurt suddenly. You’re a god-awful liar and you hate it, but for once you’d rather not let Marco know what you’re thinking. You push the ash blonde strands back away from your face as if to reiterate the point. You swear you see his face drop for a second, but only for a second. 

“Yeah, you do,” he replies with a fond smile, and he must be either brave or still very drunk because he reaches up to absentmindedly curl your hair in between his fingers like he’s petting a dog or something and you think it should probably feel at least a bit awkward but it doesn’t, it feels completely natural. Shit. In fact, not only does it feel natural, it actually feels nice, and Marco feels nice, his fingers feel nice, his breath on your cheek feels nice and shit, shit, shit.  
“Hey, listen…” you say thickly. You can’t do this anymore, you can’t sit and pretend everything is normal. “Marco, whatever this is between you and me now…”  
“Oh no, Jean, don’t…” he says, panicked eyes. He snatches his hand away.   
“Something’s changed and I…” you mutter.   
“Oh, god, I’m so sorry…” He’s whimpering, biting down hard on his lip. “I won’t do anything weird, I promise, I’m really sorry.”  
“No, shut up…”  
“I probably freaked you out, I don’t want things to be any different and I want-”  
“Marco-”  
“I want things to be the same as they were before, forget any of this happened, OK?”  
“No, I’m not gonna-”  
“Jean, please! I’m so sorry, just please forget about this and we can-”  
“You’re driving me insane!” you bark, cutting him off and stunning him into silence.

He stares at you as if you slapped him, and your throat stings as your hand would. Crap. You shouldn’t have raised your voice at him, you shouldn’t have lost your temper, but you’re too proud to gush an apology like he might.

“Shit,” you mutter. You see his chin start to wobble slightly, looking as if he’s about to start crying again, and god, no, what have you done? “I…”  
“Please…” he whimpers. You don’t know what he’s asking for anymore, but it breaks your heart to hear it.   
“I can’t… Ever since you said those things, I can’t get you out of my head, Marco.” You let out a deep, quivering breath, and steel yourself for whatever is to come next. You notice his expression has softened to a look of hopeful curiosity, staring gently at you as if your words have changed the game entirely. And , feeling your quickening pulse and beating heart, you realise they probably have.

“R-really? For real?” His voice is hardly there, breathed out with the heavy rise and fall of his chest.   
“Yeah…” you say shyly. He risks a tiny smile at you.   
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”  
“A good thing, I-I think.”  
“I know it’s probably the alcohol fuelling all of this…” he murmurs, toying with his fingers in a way that makes you want him to toy with yours. “But that makes me happy, Jean.”  
“Yeah, well…”  
“It makes me really happy.”  
“I can’t believe any of this…” you whisper, shaking your head and in half a mind to just get up and leave, but he tugs you by the wrists and makes you look at him.   
“I love you,” he says quickly. You’re amazed he holds your eyes so steady. No flinching, no awkward grimace, no sickly blush that a 14 year old would wear on their cheeks. Marco loves you. He’s said it, clear as the night above you.

You panic for a second, not sure what to do. 

 

And then something clicks with a flick of your eyes to his lips and you hate clichés but it feels as if the whole world has stopped breathing.

“If we do this,” you murmur, feeling your heart hulking its way out of your throat. “There’s no going back, you know.”  
“I know,” he says. Of course he knows. He always knows.

Your breath falls heavy and your belly pangs with nerves and it’s all you can do to just gently ease closer and closer and hope he’s taking this as seriously as you are when your noses brush and lips graze in a breathy smile before, finally, finally, you kiss him.

 

You give yourself a couple of seconds to back out just in case you’re hit with the sudden realisation that no, no, no, this is too weird, this is your best buddy you’re about to smooch here. But… you don’t back out. It’s not too weird. You kiss Marco on the mouth and it’s the best feeling you’ve felt all night.

Lips and hands move hesitantly at first, trembling, and you’re not sure what angle to hold your head before he shuffles fingers to your jaw to hold you steady and you slip your hand to his waist, carefully pressing together, unsure. You’ve never been close like this. It’s all fairly innocent and hesitant, and if you were an onlooker you probably would have snorted at how embarrassingly tentative it all is, until he does something unexpected with his tongue and you gasp a broken ‘Marco…’ without really meaning to when he lets his jaw slacken, and then you’re kissing with open mouths and this is a proper, proper kiss, you’re not even holding back anymore.

From then it’s all loose and breathy, grasping for more of his lips, more, and oh god, his tongue skimming your tongue, his thumb pressing into your neck, soft noises and the desperate sliding of mouth over mouth; it’s all gasps and fumbling fingers and fumbling knees and his hot breath slipping across your cheeks to leave a scarlet blush; it’s all impulse and instinct and caution to the wind but mostly some weird deeply-buried desire and you don’t fucking care; you don’t care what it is, if it’s the piss-poor liquor or the rush of hormones, but it’s something – something that makes kissing Marco feel completely and utterly electrifying.

 

Pulling away for air is the worst part, you feel you’d rather suffocate than stop what you’re doing in fear that oxygen may actually force rationality into your brain. 

“F-fuck,” you hear him say under his breath, and it’s strange because Marco never cusses. You think you should probably let go of him now, but you can’t. You don’t really want to.   
“That was a one-time thing, yeah?” you pant against his cheek, feeling unreasonably out of breath.   
“Yeah,” he sighs, eyes half-lidded, before tugging at your shirt back into another kiss anyway.

It’s slower this time. Like he’s trying to make it last, trying to savour it, desperate, hungry but not rushed, like he knows that you aren’t going to get to do this again. It’s a one-time thing. At least that’s what you tell yourself when you clutch onto his collar to brush your knuckles against his throbbing neck, to feel his warm pulse underneath smooth skin and wiry, pulsating muscle. Your lips skim easily against each other for what seems like ages, until you slow down so much you eventually come to a stop, and he smiles at you, forehead pressed against yours.

“Was that weird for you?” you ask, voice trembling.   
“Not really,” he replies breathlessly. “You?”   
“Little bit.”  
“My mouth feels all tingly.”  
“Mine too.”  
“I can’t believe I kissed you, Jean.” Fuck, why do his eyes have to be so shiny? Why is he looking at you with that breath-taking smile, like you’re the best thing he’s ever seen? Shit, shit.   
“Me neither,” you whisper. He lowers his head, all coy, and you can’t help but grin. 

“So… what does this mean now?” he asks slowly. You screw up your eyes at the question. You were dreading it.   
“Marco, I-” you groan. “I mean I said there’s no going back, but this is all pretty sudden and it was just a kiss and…”  
“Sshh, forget it,” he interrupts. “Don’t ruin the moment.”  
“Whatever happens, it isn’t going to happen overnight.”  
“I know, I know.”  
“You’re still my best buddy, and I’m still really confused about everything and-”  
“Sshh… Please, just… for now, Jean. Just this one night, can we forget about all that? I… I need this. Just for one night, OK?” he pleads.   
“Y-Yeah…” you say at last.   
“Kiss me again?” he asks quietly and you kiss him and you tell yourself over and over and over as your teeth tug at the curve of his smile and he whimpers your name into your mouth that this doesn’t have to mean anything in the end, you’re just doing as he wants for just this one night. 

Whatever happens in the morning or for the rest of your lives definitely isn’t going to be so easy or so carefree. You might end up getting together after all, or things might go back to as-normal-as-possible where kissing Marco Bodt under an audience of stars is merely a distant memory. But for now, right now, you think you might need this just as much as he does.

 

“What the fuck?! Horse-face is eating Marco!” someone cries and you tear away from each other in an instant, scrambling to separate and scrubbing saliva from your mouths. But instead of curling up from humiliation like you would have expected him to, Marco just laughs. He laughs and you struggle to find the source of the voice and it’s Eren fucking Jaeger of all people staggering out of the door, but Marco’s laugh is infectious and you start laughing too despite yourself.

“Get lost!” you snort at Jaeger, who is staring at you dumbfounded.   
“Don’t fucking eat Marco, you bastard!” he exclaims, incredulous. “No-one should eat Marco! Marco, are you OK, man?”  
“I’m good!” Marco giggles.   
“Go back inside, Eren!” you call, and, surprisingly, Eren does as he is told, lumbering back the way he came.

“That was interesting,” Marco says, the remainder of his laugh sliding to a bashful smile.   
“What a dick,” you mutter. Surprisingly though, you’re not even mad.   
“Let’s go home,” he says softly in your ear and you nod and follow him scuttling down the porch steps, down the golden leaf-laden front drive, away, away from the grandiose house and the crappy music and the drunkards to the inky quiet streets where comfortable silence settles between you as you walk side-by-side on the way back to his place, brushing knuckles once in a while.


	6. Part 6

You walk for about 5 minutes without uttering another word before you become restless with the quiet.

“Marco,” you say, breaking the silence that’s glazed over. You decide very firmly you can’t let this fix into awkwardness.  
“Hm?”  
“Tell me about stuff…” you mumble.  
“Stuff? What sort of stuff?”  
“About… You. And me.” He laughs, as if he’s happy you want to know. You do want to know. You want to know everything you’ve missed.  
“What sort of things about me and you?” he says with a tiny, abashed smile and you think he already knows what you mean but he just wants to hear you say it.  
“Stuff about you liking me… Stuff I didn’t notice before. Stories… a-and shit.”  
“Stories?”  
“I dunno…” You’re shy all of a sudden too.

He thinks for a little while, head to the sky. Then smiles.

“Do you remember that time when you were all miserable about Mikasa rejecting you?”  
“Pff. You’re gonna have to be more specific,” you reply, cringing at your dumb-ass younger self.  
“You were moping around, it was after Thanksgiving, um… last year?”  
“God, that was the worst rejection yet. I stopped trying after that.”  
“Mm,” he hums. “But I gave you that huge talk about how you’d find the right person eventually?”  
“Oh, yeah. Kinda made me feel better,” you say. Marco was always good at that, making you feel better.  
“And I remember,” he says, shunting his gaze to one side, smile faltering at the memory. “You said to me after, ‘Marco, if you were a girl, I would totally date you’. And…”  
“What?” You watch him swallow, his Adam’s apple pulsing out and in.  
“I… Well, this is embarrassing but I cried for, like, that whole night because I couldn’t decide whether I was happy or sad about what you’d said,” he confesses. There’s no shame in his voice though, only a distant fondness. There’s some captivating honesty about him, you think, watching his sad smile – some indefinite charm that you can’t ever imagine possessing. 

You turn your eyes to the wet sidewalk, dotted with tiny amber flecks of the streetlight’s glare. Your shadow stretches before you as you walk, then shrinks again when you approach another lamp, stretching, shrinking, stretching – rhythmic, like your heart beat, or the lapping of the ocean on the shore. You think you’d like to take Marco to the beach. You could get drunk on cheap beer, let the cold sea nip at your toes, then lie side-by-side in the warm sand, watching the sun that’s nearly as golden as his smile sink, winking, into the horizon. 

“Wow…” you say, because you can’t think of anything else worth saying.  
“I really fell for you, Jean,” he says with a soft laugh. “I didn’t know what to do at first but… then it just became something I had to deal with…”

Jesus… It’s all a bit overwhelming to hear about. You were totally oblivious the whole time, of course.

“Since when anyway?” you ask. “I never noticed it.”  
“Since when? Oh, ages back,” he says sombrely, a glint in his eye from the harsh orange light. “Remember the first summer we spent together? And how we sat on that field until, what, 2AM, just talking?”  
“Yeah, I remember,” you reply faintly, recalling the black sky and the cold thrill of being out so late. You’d felt so alive then.  
“You told me, ‘Marco’, you said, ‘Marco, you’re my best friend’. And it was the first time you’d said something like that to me. The first time you’d opened up. The first time I’d felt so close to anyone in the world. It was then. I fell in love right then.” 

Whoa. Is your heart supposed to be beating that fast?

“I can’t believe you never said anything...”  
“I was waiting for the right moment, I guess.”  
“And so tonight was the right moment?” you question with a wicked grin. He laughs.  
“No. It just sort of… came out. I wanted to make it a grand affair when I told you. Fireworks and everything.”  
“And so you just figured everything would be OK? You’d confess everything and I’d fall in love with you, we’d get married and have a house and a dog and some kids?”  
“In Paris!” he exclaims, and you laugh from somewhere deep in your chest.  
“In Paris,” you repeat.  
“That was the dream…” he says with a good-natured sigh. He turns to look at you with soft eyes and freckles bobbing upwards on the apples of his grinning cheeks, and that’s it right there. That’s the moment you think you fall too.  
“You’re a real dreamer, Marco,” you say softly.  
“I know.”  
“It’s not really a bad thing, I guess. To dream a little.”

He takes hold of your hand then, properly, like you’re a couple or something. You slot your fingers neatly between his because it’s all you can think of to do, and Christ, does it feel so right. It sort of makes it hard to breathe.  
“We’re complete opposites, me and you,” you remark, twisting your hand into his a little more. Maybe you could get used to this, you think. Maybe his dumb dream doesn’t sound so bad after all. Maybe you like his solidness next to you, maybe you like his laugh and his soft voice and his skin against yours. God, you like his friendship but maybe there’s more to it after all, maybe you could be more than friends… Maybe. 

“The realist and the idealist?” he murmurs.  
You smile at him. “Yeah, something like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue left a sour taste in my mouth so I got rid. Sorry to those comments lost! :(
> 
> However this message still remains true:  
> Thanks so much everyone! This is probably gonna be my last JeanMarco fic, but it has been a pleasure working on both of my stories. I dunno if I will upload any more fanfics but I think will be sticking around AO3 for a little while. :) Thanks again to everyone who has read, commented on, bookmarked and kudos'd my work. So long, lovely people! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for reading, comments or feedback of any type are always very much appreciated! <3


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